


i can't believe you tore me open (i'm sorry)

by murphysarc



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Explosions, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04, The Ark, sorry - Freeform, this is sad?, this is weird?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 15:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11809191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphysarc/pseuds/murphysarc
Summary: murphy can’t die yet - he has to say goodbye to bellamy, first.canon compliant including s4, possible minor, inconsequential differences. title from “sorry” by halsey.





	i can't believe you tore me open (i'm sorry)

**Author's Note:**

> ahaha so at comic con richard said he'd like bellamy to kill murphy. i rewatched the panel and this was born.
> 
> it's angsty, it's weird, but hey, no roman numerals so that's new!
> 
> also i don't know squat at mechanics, sorry raven

There is something different about Murphy, something that no one quite understands, and that is that he doesn’t exactly  _ care _ about himself.

It’s not that he’s going to throw his life away into the wind, it’s more that - 

he  _ cares _ if his death prevents a life that could be saved,

he  _ cares _ if tears are shed over his passing,

he  _ cares _ if it’s pointless and yet he  _ cares _ if there’s a reason.

He assumes that’s how he got here, pinned underneath several pieces of Ark machinery as the walls of the spaceship he once called home fall and crash on top of him. He assumes that’s how he got here, but if he’s being honest with himself, it’s a total and utter lie.

When he’s honest with himself, Murphy’s mind starts to wander and - 

* * *

_ Bellamy may have beat him, cursed him, banished him, but it’s not goodbye. “He deserves to die!” may have been the words spoken, but it’s not goodbye. _

_ Murphy still lives, as does Bellamy, and no final thoughts or prayers have been shared in either direction. _

_ Because that’s how it is. That’s how it  _ has _ to be. There’s no skating around the edges of issues such as endings, not when it comes to two people so deeply in love they’ve never admitted that fact to each other.  _

_ If it’s an ending, Bellamy will make it clear to him, and from where Murphy’s standing - well, sitting - it’s looking pretty open to him. _

_ He gets up and walks away from camp. “Don’t worry, Blake,” he says. “We’ll see each other again. I’ll make sure of that.” _

* * *

No, that’s not good. He can’t think about something like that, not now, not when his life is actually hanging in the balance. 

See, Murphy didn’t go to school, so when the inevitable option of “someone has to stay in this room and stop the entire Ark from exploding, but they’ll probably die” Murphy took it upon himself to be this person. And now, here he is, his task completed with minor instructions from Raven.

The entire Ark did not explode, but the control room sort of did, and now - 

Murphy can’t feel his left leg. A trail of blood trickles down his face, indicating a head wound he should be more concerned about. A giant metal bar, probably a support beam, lies across his chest. He’d breathe, he’d scream if he could, but that’s out of the picture, so instead he - 

* * *

_ Murphy is hanged. Bellamy is hanged. They’re even, now, but still Murphy runs. _

_ His last encounter with Bellamy is nothing like he assumed it would be, it did not equate them, it did not level the playing field. If anything, in trying to even himself, Murphy sank far lower than he thought the ground could go. _

_ Still, it is not a goodbye. He has not heard the words. He’s got absolutely nowhere to go but he will not risk returning to Bellamy, he will not risk hearing the words -  _

_ no matter how  _ much _ he loves him -  _

_ no matter how  _ much _ it hurts - _

_ “I’ll come back, Blake,” he says to himself. “I’ll come back when I know you’re not going to end this too soon.” _

* * *

Reality snaps back. Murphy’s losing it, too quickly.

He  _ thinks _ someone’s banging at the door, yelling, but his ears swim and nothing registers clearly. It’s probably a hallucination. Maybe it’s brought on by the fact that the metal bar is crushing him, something is  _ definitely _ impaling his left leg, and it’s getting increasingly harder to stay focused.

In one, odd moment, he thinks of Clarke. What would she do? Probably she’d find the strength to push off the bar, pry out whatever was in her leg, run out of the room and return to a happy campfire surrounded by all her friends.

Murphy doesn’t know what that’s like, though. It doesn’t happen.

Instead - 

* * *

_ Bellamy leaves for Mount Weather without saying goodbye. Murphy leaves for the City of Light without saying goodbye. _

_ There’s something unwritten yet spoken aloud, there. Something - there’s something that conveys everything they want to say, leaving nothing to interpretation.  _

_ “Bellamy, I love you,” Murphy believes it says. “You’re coming back, one day, and so will I. Maybe we’ll have found a better place by then. Maybe we can finally end whatever this is, and begin what we really want to be.” _

* * *

Someone is definitely at the door. 

“Bellamy,” Murphy tries to say, but there’s blood in his mouth and the word isn’t enunciated. Maybe the meaning is, though. He hopes it is.

A crackle of electricity pops somewhere in the room. The control center is very, very much destroyed. He’d be lying if he said he knows what happened to it - something about an electricity surge, and redirecting it to one place? Raven would know.

Maybe Raven’s at the door. Then again, what could she possibly do?

What could she possibly do that Bellamy hasn’t already done - 

* * *

_ As fate would have it, they reunite underneath Polis, guns at the ready. Flashlights shine on Murphy’s pale face. He does not blink, not when he knows he is staring directly into the eyes of a man who’s promise he is only now fulfilling. _

_ “Murphy?” Bellamy says, emerging from the shadows. There are so many emotions across his face. Murphy cannot pick only one to respond to.  _

_ “Oh, Bellamy,” Murphy whispers, but he doesn’t voice it aloud. “You didn’t say goodbye, remember? We had to meet again. It’s only right.” _

_ There is no ‘we will meet again’ to Murphy. There is only ‘goodbye,’ and he hasn’t heard it quite yet. _

* * *

A pounding. An explosion, and then - the door is open.

Murphy’s head is swimming along with his ears at this point. He’s slowly lost feeling in anything below his waist. His lungs fill slower and slower with each delicate, painful breath. The metal bar is not getting any lighter. 

“This is worse than I thought,” someone now in the room says, and well, they’re not wrong when it comes to a lot of things. 

“That idiot,” someone else says. It’s Bellamy. It has to be.

Footsteps move closer, but Murphy doesn’t have the energy to move his head to look. All his eyes can see are a piece of scrap metal, charred at the edges, lying on its side next to his head, so close to landing on his neck and slicing his head off.

Murphy is no hydra. When one head is lost, there are no replacements. 

Silence, footsteps, and then - “Oh my god...Bellamy? You’ll want to…I…”

There’s no way of knowing who that is, but then someone is moving towards him quickly and someone is kneeling over him and - 

* * *

_ “If you want to be useful, take a weapon, stand a post.” _

_ Sure. Yes. He does want to be useful, but not in this way. Believe what you want to believe, but Murphy is a reformed pacifist. He is done with the bloodshed, the killing, the guilt that comes with watching the life leave someone’s eyes.  _

_ He’s done with all of it. _

_ And so he turns, leaving, walking away from Bellamy once more, into the shadows he was once so desperate to escape from.  _

_ It’s not their time yet. It will be, one day. _

_ “I’m sorry, Bell,” he says. “Goodbye is coming, but not now. Not now.” _

* * *

“Murphy. Hey, look at me. Murphy,  _ please _ . John!”

Something in him focuses, vision clearing only slightly, enough for him to see Bellamy leaning over him. There’s a hand - Bellamy’s - on his forehead, gently pushing the loose hair out of his face. The other hand is on Murphy’s arm, as if Bellamy wants to embrace him, but is too scared he’ll break.

“Bellamy,” Murphy tries again. There’s still blood in his mouth, but Bellamy understands, he thinks.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Bellamy whispers softly. He hasn’t stopped stroking Murphy’s forehead. This is not something they have ever done before, not something Bellamy would have ever  _ dared _ to do before, no matter how much they love each other. 

There must be something really special about this moment, Murphy decides. Something’s changing, right now.

He tries to speak, but he can’t, and then he remembers that this moment is special because he’s dying.

* * *

_ They push each other. They break each other, only to piece each other back together again. _

_ It’s never goodbye, not when they scream, not when they cry, not when everything feels like it’s about to fall apart and the other is only contributing to their demise. _

_ It’s never goodbye, because when the other is gone, only then will their true demise become very, very apparent. _

* * *

“No, don’t do that Murphy, please,” Bellamy says, a bit forceful, redirecting Murphy’s thoughts into the present.

The bar is moving lower. He can’t breathe. 

In selective moments, he swears he sees Raven, Monty and Harper off to the side of his vision, working at pulling the bar off, at removing whatever’s in his leg, at patching up wounds he hasn’t been able to feel. It’s not working. 

It won’t work.

“Murphy, I can’t believe you did that,” Bellamy says. “I can’t believe you would do that for us. I...don’t leave us, okay? Don’t leave me. Not now. Not after that.”

Well, he doesn’t want to, but there’s not really a choice in any of this - 

* * *

_ “The Ark is overloaded,” Raven says, the graveness of the situation apparent in her voice. “Old, faulty wiring. The entire space station is going to explode if we don’t fix it.” _

_ “Can we fix it?” Bellamy asks. _

_ “Yes,” she says. “In the main control center. The surge can be redirected in there, but...it has to be done manually, from that room.” _

_ “What’s the problem with that?” _

_ “The surge could - no, it  _ will _ cause a failure in the control center. In simple terms, the panel will explode.” _

_ “Raven, that panel takes up the entire room.” _

_ “Exactly. The whole Ark explodes, or one room. We all die, or one person does.” _

_ There’s not really a choice in any of this. As soon as Bellamy, Raven, Monty and Harper sit down to discuss what they’re going to do, Murphy leaves the room and walks into the main control center. He’d spent enough time with Raven. He knows what he’s doing. _

_ Just before the lever is pulled, before the final command is entered, he whispers, “It’s not goodbye yet, Bell. I’m pushing this one, I know, but - not yet.” _

_ Bellamy’s just outside, he thinks, pounding on the door, begging Murphy to stop, to come outside, to logically think this over. _

_ The power is rerouted, and then everything explodes, both in the outside world and for Murphy himself. _

* * *

The pain is creeping up on him. Murphy knows adrenaline and shock don’t last forever, but it was nice when it lasted.

His limbs begin to shake with the strain. His thoughts are cloudy, jumbled, moving from one place to the next but always on Bellamy, always…

A final, last effort is made and Murphy meets Bellamy’s gaze. “Please,” he whispers. “End this.”

It’s understood. It always has been - they were just too naive to notice.

Just before, in their final moments, Bellamy’s eyes fill with tears. “Goodbye, Murphy,” he says. “I love you.”

_ Goodbye, Bellamy.  _

_ You know how I feel. _

One hand is still stroking his forehead. The other covers his nose, and then his mouth. It does not take long. He does not have the strength to struggle.

The pain lifts, and he is gone, finally free.

It has finally ended, but then, it has only begun.

**Author's Note:**

> hope this was mildly okay. i'm not happy with the ending, but. 
> 
> anyways. have a lovely day/night!! i love posting things at midnight!!!!! wow!!!!!
> 
> <3


End file.
